Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Long Changdong! How can you be so heartless?!”

“You and Dongzi grew up together. He died far from home over a year ago, and you’re just going to stand by and watch him be denied a proper burial?”

Tang Dong’s mother had come to my door again, Tang Dong’s funeral portrait clutched in her arms.

She blocked our front door first thing in the morning, and before she even saw me, she barged into the house shouting, disturbing every neighbor around us.

My mother-in-law was so furious her face turned pale. Pointing at Tang Dong’s mother, she snapped, “If Tang Dong can’t be buried, that’s the evil he brought on himself. It’s his retribution!”

“When he kicked our family while we were down and schemed against our Changdong, why didn’t he think about the fact that they grew up together?”

I had just come back from buying breakfast. Seeing the scene, I was afraid my mother-in-law would get so angry she’d make herself sick, so I quickly told my daughter to take her grandmother back inside.

The moment Tang’s Mother saw me, her voice softened. With a thud, she dropped to her knees in front of me.

“Changdong, I know Dongzi wronged you.”

“But you’ve been a kindhearted, broad-minded child since you were little. And we’ve been neighbors for so many years.”

“Besides, back then, Dongzi only went out driving trucks because he followed you into it. Now that he died on the road, can you really bear to ignore him?”

I looked at Tang’s Mother without expression, then at the funeral portrait of Tang Dong she was holding tight in her arms.

Tang Dong had been dead for more than a year. That black-and-white outline looked both familiar and strange to me now.

“Dongzi, help me. The doctor said that as long as your sister-in-law has surgery in time, she still has a chance.”

I would never forget that day, when I knelt outside Tang Dong’s front door and begged him bitterly.

“For the sake of the two of us growing up together, I’m begging you as your brother.”

Tang Dong narrowed his eyes at me, the corner of his mouth curling coldly.

“Long Changdong, who the hell do you think you’re calling your brother? Right now, you’re not even worth as much as my family’s dog!”

I watched with my own eyes as Tang Dong took the pork ribs I had bought with the only two hundred yuan I had left and threw them to his dog.

At that moment, I finally realized the man in front of me was no longer the brother I had protected since childhood.

Tang Dong and I both came from dirt-poor peasant families. I was the one who brought Tang Dong out of the village.

We grew up together, and I had always treated him like a brother closer than blood.

I was born tall and broad, with a sturdy build. Even as a child, I was the leader among the kids.

Back then, Tang Dong was short and frail, always getting sick, and he didn’t talk much.

Since our families were neighbors, the elders in our homes all told me to look after him, so I kept him by my side wherever I went.

As long as I was around, no one dared bully Tang Dong.

When the adults went out to work, I was also the one who took Tang Dong to eat and brought him around to play.

Neither Tang Dong nor I were cut out for studying. After drifting around the village until I was eighteen, I was the first to leave and start driving long-haul trucks.

I found a good master and studied under him for two years. Once I was able to drive on the road by myself, I brought Tang Dong out with me too.